1. Field
An air conditioner is disclosed herein.
2. Background
An air conditioner is an apparatus that cools, warms, or purifies indoor air to provide a comfortable indoor environment for a user. The air conditioner may be classified as an electric heat pump (EHP) type, which uses electric power, or a gas heat pump (GHP) type, which uses a gas fuel, such as liquid petroleum gas (LPG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to a power source for driving a compressor. In the GHP type, an engine is operated by burning the gas fuel, and thus, the compressor is driven.
A conventional EHP type air conditioner is disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 10-2003-0077857, which is hereby incorporated by reference. In the conventional EHP type air conditioner, the compressor may be easily controlled by adjusting a supply current. Thus, it is possible to respond to a partial load, and high energy efficiency may be obtained. However, the EHP type air conditioner has a problem in which frost is generated at an outdoor heat exchanger when a low temperature warming operation is performed.
A conventional GHP type air conditioner is also disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 10-2003-0077857. The conventional GHP type air conditioner has excellent defrost performance from using waste heat of an engine, but also has a problem in that engine efficiency is low due to heat loss, for example. Therefore, an air conditioner having further improved performance and efficiency is required.